oALMON RIVERS 361 



that in my opinion the river could not be improved 

 unless at great cost. I advised him to sell it, if 

 he was not satisfied with its present condition, 

 which he did shortly afterwards. His successors 

 repeated his experiments of restocking on a larger 

 scale, but it does not yield more salmon than it did 

 thirty years ago, when I inspected it, if, indeed, 

 it yields as many. 



There are many rivers between Tadousac and 

 Labrador in which there are no salmon at all and 

 others in which there are only a few. The first 

 mentioned contain no salmon because of natural 

 obstructions where they empty into the sea, such 

 for example as the Sault au Cochon, the Manitou, 

 etc. On others where there are a few miles, more 

 or less, between the tide way and these obstruc- 

 tions, natural or artificial, salmon will generally 

 be found. Of this class of rivers there are sev- 

 eral, some of them beautiful streams with good 

 size tributaries, notably the Outarde, Manicou- 

 agan, Pentecost and Ste. Marguerite. On each 

 of these below the falls I have seen salmon, posi- 

 tive proof that if they had the chance they would 

 go further. Considering the immense area of un- 

 disturbed spawning grounds that these could af- 

 ford, it seems a great pity to see them wasted as 

 it were. Salmon rivers are so valuable to-day 

 that I believe it would be a good investment for 

 the Government or capitalists to take hold of these 

 rivers and build fish ways on them. Now would 



